What Failing a Thesis Taught Me About Building Ambitious Projects
There’s always that one project in a developer’s life that hits harder than expected — mine was LiftTrack.
It wasn’t just another school assignment. It was our thesis — the kind that’s supposed to wrap up four years of sleepless nights, Git commits, Stack Overflow threads, and debugging marathons. But this one nearly broke me.
The Ambition
Our vision was clear: a mobile app that uses 3D convolutional neural networks (3DCNNs) to track weightlifting form. A fitness-tech thesis built with AI. Too cool to fail — or so we thought.
We aimed for cross-platform deployment: Android and iOS. But reality hit differently.
The Apple Problem
We had Android devices. But to test and deploy for iOS, we hit Apple’s wall.
Apple doesn’t allow debugging iOS apps on Android phones.
And iOS debugging without an iPhone? Forget it.
Despite having a MacBook, I couldn’t fully test our app on iOS. And that was a hard requirement.
So, I did what any desperate dev-student would do:
I bought an iPhone. Just to debug. Just for this project.
The Cost of a Dream
The project drained not just time and energy, but money. Even with all the sacrifices, the result?
❌ We failed.
For the first time in my academic life — from elementary to college — I failed a subject.
It wasn’t just a grade. It was a hit to my identity. I wasn’t used to failing. But this one forced me to.
Why We Failed
- Platform constraint: Our thesis guidelines didn’t allow dual-platform development due to submission limitations.
- Scope over realism: We went for something bold, but beyond what the process could support.
- No margin for hardware gaps: Not everyone in the team had the ecosystem to support both platforms.
- Burnout: The weight of doing something “too advanced” without the runway to land it safely.
What Happened Next
We picked ourselves up. Accepted the F. Moved to the next semester.
Then we rebuilt — smarter, calmer, more strategic.
LiftTrack lived on, just not in the form we imagined at first.
Reflections
- Ambition isn’t the enemy — but poor platform support and Apple’s walled garden can be.
- Failing a class doesn’t mean failing a career.
- Sometimes, trying something “overkill” teaches more than playing it safe.
- And finally — never underestimate the importance of owning both an iPhone and a MacBook when doing cross-platform dev. (Thanks, Apple.)
“Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of it.”